


Shave Me

by katling



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Head Shaving, I'm sure they'll resolve it soon, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, not in this fic though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 07:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8196484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: Kaaras needs to shave his head and there some annoying bits around his horns that are hard to get to. Cassandra offers to help him. It doesn't go the way they thought it would.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have a number of half-done playthroughs that I pick up and put down depending on my mood at the time. This is from a Cass-romancing male Adaar and the idea came from a rather entertaining interlude when I shaved an old boyfriend of mine after he hurt his hand. He said it was very, very different from being shaved by a barber. ;D Also this Adaar is like a gigantic, slightly clumsy Great Dane puppy.
> 
> This was originally in my compilation [Inquisition Allsorts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3523040). I’m splitting it up because it was getting too unwieldy with too many pairings in the one place. So if you think you’ve read this before, you probably have, either at Inquisition Allsorts or over on my main tumblr, [tellmevarric](http://tellmevarric.tumblr.com/) or my sideblog [talesoftheinquisiton](http://talesoftheinquisition.tumblr.com/), where I now put all my fic.

The first time Kaaras Adaar saw Cassandra Pentaghast, he noticed two things. The first was that she was beautiful. The second was that she was very, very angry and that anger seemed to be mostly directed at him. Not too much later, he noticed a third thing - she was a damn fine fighter. In fact, she was good enough that he couldn’t help but feel ridiculously and somewhat inappropriately turned on. Thankfully for his dignity and her opinion of him, he was immediately distracted by elves and dwarves and rifts and then the Breach itself.

Haven gave him an opportunity to flirt with her and while she didn’t seem upset by that, she wasn’t exactly encouraging either. Actually, if anything, she seemed perplexed. Still he didn’t intend to give up. Warrior women were something of a thing for him - just about every woman he’d bedded had been a warrior - and he'd never met a finer one than Cassandra. And it's not as if he had plenty of free time on his hands to make an ass of himself like he did over Larissa that time when they were wintering over in Val Chevin. This whole Herald of Andraste thing kept him busier than he'd ever been in the past so maybe he could actually manage _suave_ instead of _ridiculous_ for once.

It wasn’t until they were camping in the Hinterlands one evening not long after they’d gotten back from recruiting the Templars from Therinfal Redoubt that he got any indication that Cassandra might actually be affected by his flirting and, well, him in general. He'd been rubbing his head all day. It had been nearly three weeks since he'd last shaved his head and the stubble was starting to annoy him. So when they made camp that evening, he decided to do something about it.

He came out to sit next to the fire with his shaving implements in his hands. He'd already taken off his armour and washed the vitaar from his face and now he stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside. It was the work of a few moments to lather up his head and then he got to work with his razor. He did it by feel, having long gotten used to not having a mirror. He slowly worked his way around the base of his horns first, ignoring the water and soap that was trickling down his neck and shoulders. This was always the trickiest part. The skin was sensitive and thin where it lay over the emerging horns.

A choking sound made him start and he came close to nicking himself. He looked up to see what the sound was and found Cassandra staring at him. Or at his chest to be more precise. She looked up and, for a moment, their eyes met then Cassandra turned away. But Kaaras could have sworn she was blushing before she did. However when she turned back and sat down opposite him, she seemed perfectly composed and he wondered whether he’d seen that right at all.

"I did not realise that..." She waved a hand towards his head.

Kaaras went back to the delicate work of shaving round his horns. "I shaved my head? I'm not naturally bald."

"The few Qunari I have met all seem to have bald heads."

Kaaras chuckled. "It's easier with the horns just to shave it all off... at least that's my point of view... but we do have hair. Some of the other Qunari in my company grow their hair pretty long. Me? I hate the feel of it."

"Do you always shave like this?"

He gave her a blank look and shook the collected soap and stubble from the razor. "Razor, soap, water. How else am I meant to do it?"

"I mean without a mirror."

"Oh, that. Yeah." He smiled ruefully. "There's a standing order in the Valo-kas that they don't give me anything breakable to carry because sure as hell, I'll break it. I went through about a dozen mirrors before I gave up and learned to do it by feel."

He ran his fingers over the skin around his horns and grumbled under his breath. He'd done a lousy job on the skin that lay under his horns. That was always the hardest part since his horns lay close to his head instead of branching out like Bull’s did, lucky bastard, but if he didn't get it done, it would itch something fierce. And being called an ox-man was annoying enough without looking like one by rubbing his head and horns against any handy surface.

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm trying to figure out whether nicking myself and bleeding half the night is preferable to itching for days until I can get that soldier whose set himself up as a barber in Haven to shave round my horns."

"I... I could do it if you would like."

He stared at her for a moment and it looked like she was as surprised by her offer as he was. But hell, he wasn't going to miss this opportunity to have a gorgeous fierce woman manhandle him a bit. Just one thing...

"Uh, you ever shaved someone else before?"

"No, but I will be careful."

He hesitated for a moment longer then held the razor out to her. He trusted her with his life, why wouldn’t he trust her with his head? "Let me just lather up again. Be gentle. The skin is sensitive around the base of my horns and it's easy to nick it."

She had gotten up and she now took the razor, moving around to stand in front of him. He lathered the skin and then nodded to her. As she drew the razor over his skin and around his horns, first hesitantly and then with greater confidence, he suddenly found out why the other mercs had always made lewd jokes about this sort of thing. Her free hand rested gently on his head and she quickly worked out the right pressure to use to shave him properly but not cut the skin. The sensation of someone else doing this was like nothing he'd ever felt before and he felt himself getting hard.

A slow blush crept up his cheeks and he hoped like hell Cassandra hadn't noticed it. Thankfully the fact that he was sitting disguised his growing erection but the blush might be harder to explain. And he really, _really_ didn’t want her thinking that he was some kind of brutish beast.

Then she took hold of one of his horns and used it to move his head and he couldn't help the somewhat strangled noise that escaped him. Yeah, okay, he had a thing for his bed partners grabbing hold of his horns. Some humans liked pulling hair! It was the same thing, right?

But she'd obviously heard the noise because she immediately let go.

"Oh! I'm sorry. Should I not do that?"

For a moment the question hung in the air as Kaaras tried to think of an answer that wouldn't make him sound like a complete lech. Because he didn't want to lie to her either. If he ever managed to convince her that a relationship with him was a good thing - because this woman was sure as hell no simple bed partner - he didn't want her thinking she couldn't do that. Because he liked it. And he wanted her to do that maybe, some day in the nebulous future.

"Er, no.... It's, uh, fine."

But he'd taken too long and sounded too unconvincing and she stepped back to take a good look at him. Kaaras wondered if he could use the mark on his hand to open up the ground so it could swallow him. Because here he was, flushed and trying to hide an erection, and Cassandra had very sharp eyes.

He actually _knew_ the moment when she figured it out even though he wasn't looking at her. Her sudden tiny, almost silent gasp was enough. His blush deepened but now it had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with shame. But at least it took care of his arousal. That was one small mercy.

"I... look, Cassandra... it's.... this..." He couldn't even get half a sentence out and he had a moment to reflect that if Shokrakar was here, she'd have fallen off her seat laughing by now.

He was shocked into silence however when Cassandra stepped forward again and almost delicately placed her hand back on his head. She tilted his head to one side and went back to shaving him.

The rest of the shave continued in silence and when she was finished, she placed the razor into the cup of water, picked up the scrap of towel he’d also brought out and stepped back. For a moment, they just looked at each other then Cassandra surprised him when she gave him a tiny smile.

“There.” She hesitated for a moment then said, “If you ever need help with that again, you… you only need to ask.”

She was blushing, actually _blushing_ , by the end of that and she shoved the towel into his hands before stalking away. Kaaras watched her go with amazement and a growing smile. He’d made her blush, he’d made her smile and she hadn’t smacked him for becoming inappropriately turned on around her. This day was the best he could remember for a long time.

“Now there’s something I never thought I’d see.”

Kaaras almost fell off his seat at the sound of Varric’s voice and he hastily began mopping up the remnants of water and soap from his head, shoulders and chest. “Which bit?”

“All of it,” Varric said dryly. “The Seeker is human, after all. Who knew?”

“She’s amazing,” Kaaras said with what he was sure was a particularly sappy grin.

Varric gave him a long look then started to chuckle. “You and the Seeker, huh? Now that might be something worth writing a story about.”


End file.
